Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,65
he was coming to kill me and I’m ashamed to admit I felt relief. Finally, no more pain, no more hurt, no more seeing you jump into the water over and over again.
But when he reached me, the man didn’t kill me. He said, “If you shoot me, you’ll be acting against your own interests. I’m here to stop another massacre.”
I laughed at him but he challenged me to come with him.
“Or would you rather drown in alcohol?”
His words cut me. To be judged by a Psy assassin? No.
I’m going with this Psy soldier, this man who walks like a killer.
Xavier
Chapter 18
ONE DAY PASSED. Two. Three. On the fourth, when nothing suspicious happened and the Rats reported no new whispers about Death Mask, DarkRiver didn’t stand down its alert, but it began to consider whether the mercenaries had simply been passing through on their way elsewhere.
Sascha hadn’t stopped living her life in the interim, but she had kept Naya in Yosemite, deep in the heart of the pack’s territory. However, that couldn’t continue forever. Her cub was missing her friends at the nursery attached to DarkRiver HQ, so Lucas had brought her in this morning. Now, at just after one-thirty, Sascha was picking her up and driving them back home so the two of them could go visit Mercy.
They were in an armored vehicle that didn’t even pretend to be anything but a protective tank. None of DarkRiver’s children would travel in anything but these for the foreseeable future. The entire fleet had been checked by mechanics when the Arrows first reported the ugly things being said about Naya; the vehicles were then assigned to families who needed to move in and out of the city.
Often they carpooled, but today, Naya and Sascha had the vehicle to themselves.
She pulled away from DarkRiver HQ’s parking lot with a wave at Lucas, who stood only a short distance away, having walked her and Naya outside. He blew her a kiss, then bent and blew one to Naya; their baby was safely ensconced in back in her special car seat that protected her while giving her a view out the windows and a clear line of sight to Sascha.
Sascha could hear Naya making kissing sounds as she blew kisses noisily back. “Bye, Papa! Bye, Papa!”
That kept her busy as Sascha merged into traffic. She wasn’t alone, of course. Dorian was in a rugged Jeep behind her, his task to escort her and Naya home. DarkRiver had made the decision not to put everyone in the same vehicle when an escort was needed; a second vehicle made it harder for anyone to mount an effective ambush—plus, it put two different sets of eyes on the road at different points.
Flashing her rear lights to acknowledge the sentinel, she smiled when he flashed his headlights in return. Then she focused on the road and on keeping Naya safe as they drove home. She’d made this journey countless times, but she never took anything for granted. Still, she had her favorite sections.
“Look at the trees, Naya,” she said as they passed through the Presidio. “Those are eucalyptus trees.”
“Eutus?”
“Yes, eucalyptus.” It was so easy to praise her child, to make her happy. She’d never understand how mothers under Silence had been able to shut down that violently powerful maternal urge. “Do you know which animals eat eucalyptus leaves?”
“Kila!”
Sascha laughed, well aware there was a good chance Naya didn’t fully understand their discussion. But her baby knew the answer after the number of times they’d passed this way—and she got just as excited every single time.
“Good girl,” Sascha said. “Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves.” As she drove, she told Naya about the marsupials and how they carried their babies in a pouch.
Naya’s mental pattern was happy in Sascha’s mind, her baby finding pleasure in listening to her mother’s voice. When Sascha ran out of koala facts, she told Naya about the upcoming DarkRiver-SnowDancer event. A few more minutes and she knew her cub would nod off. It was good timing; the nap would leave her energetic and active for the visit to Mercy and Riley’s.
They’d just passed a private driveway without incident, the curving street ahead empty of traffic, when a large truck fitted with a heavy metal bull bar roared out from that drive at high speed. It was aimed straight at Dorian’s Jeep. The sentinel managed to avoid a full-on collision with a lightning-fast turn, but it wasn’t enough.